This post has to begin with a bit of an explanation and a huge apology.
I am still keen on writing and continuing on this site. But the last few months have been very hectic. I have been teaching a class online and some new projects have come my way. The YouTube channel that I maintain needed attention and some old projects needed to be maintained. In the middle of it all, I was wondering if I should teach myself WordPress and some other coding to create a very personal site to share my writings. The most important question in all of this was if I want to continue with Chitta Aur Yantra (Mind and Technology) theme on this blog or go back to writing stories and memories of my childhood, which have knocked at my heart for years.
The web, as they say. The web.
The past is running in another direction, far away from us, shall we hold it in the present or shall we just look to the future as most self-development gurus insist?
The main reason to start a degree in media was to tell stories. I thought media and stories were synonymous. But, then you realise no one is interested in your story. Media companies and media people have their own stories. Our own stories can be personal and very limited. For them to have an audience they need to be presented in a way that is appealing and at least seems somewhat useful to the readers.
As of now, I have five unfinished websites.
J-Block stories, stories of our childhood.
Simply Sweden, a blog about stories and memories from Sweden
Mind and Media, a research oriented site that focuses on media’s impact on our minds.
Taste and Memory, a site that focuses on gathering simple and cheap recipes from around the world and stories related to them. This was meant to be both research and creative work.
KIID: Kai India in Duniya, (Kai is the Fijian word for ‘a people’). This site was also research oriented. A site that details Indian diaspora around the world and their use of Bollywood to supplement their identity.
Now,
I thought of another one to start interviewing my relatives and record their memories. To interview other friends, both older and younger who have different experience of the world. To record their stories. To not care about what will happen to the material, but just to gather the stories for now.
What I think is the most pressing to gather stories of friends from around the world. Talk to them about the foods they ate, and what they wore and how they lived. For we live in a world where we are celebrating AI-Artificial intelligence and mediated communication (phones, and emails and social media….)—we need to grasp the essence of being human. We need to download the stories of those who have lived in a time where money to buy postage stamps was equivalent to being able to afford an internet connection, where files and folders were something tangible -and were maintained by using three hole punch and clips and threads. We need to mark the stories of people who believed that cooking a whole meal from scratch was the way we honoured our guests and not by ordering a pizza for them. We need to speak to those who shed tears while cutting a bag of onions and truly believed that the joy they gave their guests was generous compensation for time and effort put into the meal.
So allow me some more thinking time before I return with a concrete plan. I still have about three unfinished posts on this site. I promise to come back with some of combining all that I want to do—No, all that calls me and keeps me awake at night.
I need to do it for my sake and for the sake of the stories that make the intricate, delicate web of our existence. The web that is visible only on the long sunny days when we decide to take a break and reflect.
And I apologise for such a long silence.